


Bad Business

by Piratesangel, Senneres



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom - A. C. Crispin
Genre: Armando Salazar may make an appearance later, Blood, But heal fast, Canon-Typical Violence, Curses, Description of blood, F/M, Immortality, Lesaro Goes Bad, Lesaro Stops Caring, Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Post-Dead Men Tell No Tales, Romance, Self cutting, Self-Harm, Silent Mary Crew Lives, Swearing, The crew can be briefly injured or cut, but in a good way, but it would be better for him if he didn't
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-06-29 10:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19828684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piratesangel/pseuds/Piratesangel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senneres/pseuds/Senneres
Summary: The Trident of Poseidon is broken, the seas have closed in again, but all is not over. Lieutenant Lesaro and the crew of the Silent Mary wake on the shores of Black Rock Island, Captain-less, Ship-less, but are they also Curse-less? Post the ending of Dead Men Tell No Tales.Piratesangel is the creator of the original female character in Bad Business, and a co-writer and editor for all chapters written. This is our first official collaboration together!





	Bad Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lieutenant Lesaro and the crew of the Silent Mary wake on Black Rock Island, the island that is the 'perfect reflection of the heavens'. But the Lieutenant's mood is neither perfect nor heavenly...
> 
> (Please be warned, frequent bad language. They're not having a good time, go easy on them)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Apologies! I said I would be posting a new chapter every two weeks (On Fridays, Australian Eastern Standard Time), but I have been delayed by a crazy amount of research I'm doing for the continuance of Heart Sick - this story for Lieutenant Lesaro has been very fleshed out, but I can't post the next chapter just yet. Soon though. I promise!

  
  
**1751**

The first thing Lieutenant Guillermo Lesaro hears is the sound of the lonely wind, its cold fingers tousling his hair. Sweeping down his body. Chilling his soaked uniform. His sodden leather eyepatch dragged; and underneath it, his eyesocket had set up a dull itch. But his limbs were as stiff as a corpse, and for a good minute he could only lie there and suffer the annoying itch, waiting for his muscles to wake up.

The wind changed direction, whistling harshly in his ears.

He shivered, and managed to force his good eye to open.

Black.

Black rocks.

He blinked, trying to focus.

Craggy dark rocks dotting black sands, stretching out into the distance. Small creamy waves, gently smoothing up the beach. The confused cry of a circling seagull. Vaguely, he wondered if the seagull was one of the cursed ones that had been bound to La María Silenciosa.

A surge of prickly pain, followed by intense cramping, racked his body and made him groan. His bad eye started to itch worse than before, and it took him some time to convince his arm it was alive and could actually move. The last time he’d felt this bad, he’d been fifteen, stupid, and hungover, after a night of drinking eight stolen flagons of his father’s madeira, carousing with his friends in the back alleyways of Barcelona.

With a pained grunt, he was finally able to move enough to clumsily push his fingers up under his eyepatch, tentatively seeking to relieve the itch. He expected to feel the familiar dips and calloused ridges of the decades old battle wound he’d got when a pirate’s point blank pistol-shot had misfired its powder, causing him to lose his eye instead of his life - but the scars were gone.

He paused. His fingertips explored smooth skin, a firm eyelid, an eyeball where there hadn’t been one in years… he sat up fast enough to make the blood rush from his head and the world swim but he didn’t care. He pushed his eyepatch up, and - 

He could see.

With both eyes.

He tore his eyepatch off completely, flinging it away over his shoulder as he looked with perfect vision at the sea before him, his mind blank with shock, his breath stopped in wonder. He felt like he was seeing it all again for the first time, the way the sunlight glanced off the waters, the way the grey clouds tumbled in high winds across the sky, the way the wet black sands reflected the skies like a perfect mirror for the brief moment the waves receded.

Behind him, the craggy island was even more imposing in the sharp morning sunlight - though island was a misnomer in itself. 'Island' suggested white sands and blue lagoons and shady coconut trees. This was an unyielding promontory of igneous black rocks, each one dotted with glowing gemstones, as if a child had daubed them with bright paint in a frenzy of random creativity. It was incredible to think that from above, the entire island was a miniature of the heavens as seen from Earth. And now he could see it, if he chose to. He could walk among the rocks and see the constellations beneath his feet, as if he were himself a god, with the perfect depth and clarity two eyes could give. Tread over the stars like Poseidon would have, so long ago. The thought made him grimace.

“It's about time you woke up.” A voice said drily in Spanish. “I’ve been waiting awhile.”

Officer Miguel Magda sat nearby, his uniform as immaculate as the day they’d left Cadíz. He had his hands clasped over his knees, and a sword in his lap as he stared out to sea. 

“So you got your eye back. Thought you might.” He added tonelessly, glancing at Lesaro before looking back out to sea. “It’s happened to all of us. Everything we’ve lost we’ve got back. Every limb, every hat, every sword. Even down to the buttons on our coats. Everything.” He stopped, and with a wry look, said, “Well, everything _physical_.”

Lieutenant Lesaro got to his feet slowly, feeling like every part of him had been shaken to pieces, before being shoved piecemeal back together. The wind felt strange on his new eye, and he couldn’t stop blinking.

Further up the beach, he heard abrupt coughing.

Officer Nico Cortez sat up suddenly, several feet away.

“¡ _Mierde_!” He swore loudly, clutching his head. “My head is inside out…”

Near him, Officer Diego Santos rolled onto his back, and took in a deep, rasping breath, his hands pressing against the muscles of his stomach, feeling the healed flesh where there had been nothing but a gaping, ghostly hole for decades. 

Officer Antonio Moss was swaying unsteadily as he turned about in a lopsided circle, trying to get his bearings. He stopped when he saw Lesaro - no, when he saw Lesaro's _eyes_ ; and his jaw became slack, and his eyes grew wide, like an unbred boy seeing the King of Spain.  
  
Lesaro ignored him, because there were more men, further down the beach, retching and coughing, helping each other stagger to their feet. He squinted, testing his renewed vision, and found he could see them very clearly. But it’d been so long since he’d last seen them all human, it took him some time before he could recognise them. But now, as he focused on them, he remembered who they were: Bracero, Navarro, Benetez…

One by one, the former crew of the Silent Mary were all returning to consciousness on the black sands of the island.

“I feel like my head is too big for my shoulders…” Cortez groaned.

Moss huffed a humourless laugh as Cortez slowly made it to his knees. “Finally, you admit you have a big head!”

“Shut up, Toni!” Cortez snarled. “It fucking _hurts_!”

“Language,” Santos panted as he succeeded in sitting up, wincing from the effort.

“How... how did we get here?” Lesaro muttered, unable to resist touching his healed eyelids again. “How are we all still alive?”

“I’d say,” Magda answered him smoothly, “To emulate dear Nico’s language, it’s a fucking mystery.”

Lesaro looked at the sea. The sails of a single ship, far from the island, were the only signs of life on the horizon.

“Where’s La María Silenciosa?” Lesaro asked.

Magda shook his head. “Gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

Magda turned and looked at Lesaro.

“She’s not there anymore. I don’t know what happened to her, but I don’t think she even sank. Everyone who stayed onboard La María got washed up on shore here with us. She’s just – gone.”

Magda was right. She was gone.

But their curse had broken. She shouldn’t have sunk. Even if she did, she was such a huge ship, it would’ve taken her hours to succumb to the sea, and they should’ve still been able to easily see her if she _was_ sinking.

But there was nothing where they'd last anchored, nothing but clear blue.

He focused again on the disappearing ship in the distance.

And as he stood on the black rocky shore, the wind lifting his damp hair, an inescapable weight settled on his chest.

He’d been abandoned.

Capitán Armando Salazar, renowned Captain for the Spanish crown, El Matador Del Mar himself, had abandoned them.

 _But had he made it?_ Optimism whispered. _Had he successfully reached the deck of the Black Pearl? Had his thirst for Sparrow’s blood finally been quenched?_

But bitterness was stronger, rebuking such pointless considerations: _did it matter, whether he did or not? Dead or not, didn’t he leave me behind? Didn’t he leave us all behind?_

As though guessing his thoughts, Magda said quietly, “He’s not among us.”

Lesaro didn’t have anything to say to that.

“But I found his sword.”

He looked.

The sword in Magda’s lap was Salazar’s.

The last time he’d seen that sword, Salazar had been brandishing it in the body of the boy, as he charged towards Sparrow – trying to kill him before he reached the Trident.

Salazar had ignored Lesaro’s warning not to possess the boy. Had ignored his men, too obsessed on torturing Sparrow with the Trident to notice they’d been waiting in the waters. And in the end, had ignored Lesaro’s cries as he ran ahead, pursuing his revenge on Sparrow to the bitter end.

Instead of putting his men first.

As a Capitán should.

“Give it to me,” Lesaro said.

Magda stood, and without a word, gave the Capitán’s rapier to Lesaro.

Lesaro’s own rapier was, curiously, missing. Unlike all the others, his halberd was empty. Perhaps he’d dropped his rapier in the wet sand at the bottom of the sea, in the race for survival. Or maybe, it’d been wrenched out of his grasp, as the force of the turbulent waters had fallen on top of them, and the currents ripped around him. He couldn’t remember. Just like he couldn’t remember exactly how they’d got here, back on the shores of the island.

But, here was Salazar’s rapier: just as sleek and polished as the day they’d sailed into the Devil’s Triangle. He touched the edge with his thumb, hissing in pain as a sharp line of red appeared. He studied the bead of blood forming on his thumb. He hadn’t felt the pain of a cut in over three decades. Fascinated, he watched as the bright red blood trickled, slowed, and then – strangely, stopped. The cut closed over. The blood reabsorbed back into his flesh. His skin was whole again.

“How …?” he muttered.

Magda’s lips parted in shock, but he said nothing. Lesaro knew he’d seen the way the cut had healed. He looked up at him. Magda’s shock was swiftly replaced with an impassive look back.

“What does this mean?” Lesaro asked.

Magda shrugged slightly. “Our curse was broken, Gui. Perhaps this is just – an extension of that.”

In the past, Lesaro would’ve rebuked Magda for using his first name. For addressing him without the respect of his title. But such etiquettes were useless now. What did it matter anymore?

“But…” Magda looked again at the healed skin on Lesaro’s thumb. “I honestly don’t know.” 

“Another complete fucking mystery?” Lesaro asked, though there was no humour in his words.

“Well, at least we are alive.” Magda looked out to sea, the ship in the distance now a mere black mark on the horizon.

Lesaro snorted. “Or just cursed again, only differently this time.”

Thanks to the pig-headed Capitán Salazar, he added silently. Capitán Salazar, who hadn’t slowed, not once, in his determination to run after Sparrow. He didn’t even turn his head.

Lesaro closed his eyes, but the image was relentless like the tide, rolling over and over in his mind: him crying out to Armando to stop, wanting him to come back, wanting him to give up his revenge and lead his men back up towards the safety of the island instead of deeper into the sea… again and again, the echo of his own voice played.

_Capitán… Capitán…_

Pathetic.

And then, right before the waters had crashed in over Lesaro's head, he'd seen Capitán Salazar distantly one last time, clinging to the anchor-chain...

And then the sea had swallowed him.

Caught between the two opposing walls of water crashing against each other, Lesaro had been swept up, tossed and dumped helplessly, this way and that, terror making him reach out to grasp ahold of something, anything, that would stop it.

Scrabbling as the raging waters had dragged him along the rocky bottom, his fist had closed over something small and hard and boxlike, and without even knowing why, he held it against his chest, every fibre of his being screaming for them to be saved, _to go back, go back to when they were alive, go back to how it was before everything had started to go wrong, go back and just live this time... to live and not to die_. And even amidst the chaos of the powerful sea, the burning of his lungs, the sharp pressure in his ears, Lesaro had felt it.

A silent but powerful assent.

_So it shall be._

The small box had cracked open in his death-grip.

And then – they’d woken up here. 

Around them, the Silent Mary crew were drawing near, talking in low tones to one another as they came.

Officer Cortez tentatively approached Lesaro and Magda.

Glancing once more up and down the beach, Cortez asked in a low tone, “Have either of you seen Capitán Salazar?”

“Seen him?” Lesaro grated his teeth together. “Sí. I saw the back of him, when he left us to die!”

“No, no, we haven’t,” Magda stepped in quickly. “We should assume – he is lost.”

“But he could’ve made it,” Cortez said, glancing warily at Lesaro. “Perhaps, we should try and –”

“Shut up!” Lesaro snapped.

Cortez’s eyes widened. “But the pirates could be holding him captive!” 

Lesaro laughed harshly. “Ah, the irony would be delicious, Nico, would it not?”

Cortez’s eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. “Por favor, Lieutenant, but I am not making a joke –”

“Nico –” Magda warned.

“I was only asking if the Capitán –”

“Shut _up_ about the Capitán!” Lesaro shouted.

Every man on the beach stopped their conversations to stare at him.

“Who gives a _fuck_ where he is?” Lesaro whipped Salazar’s rapier through the air. “Capitán Armando Salazar, El Matador Del Mar, so great, so heroic, the esteemed son of Spain! The greatest Capitán in Spanish history, sí? Let us all bow down before him, let us worship his fucking _boots_ , he is so breathtaking!” Lesaro’s sarcasm was sharp, his focused fury making every man there stare at their usually reasonable Lieutenant in undisguised discomfort. “He abandoned us! Why should _any_ of us care where he is?

“But, Lieutenant Lesaro,” Cortez swallowed. “The pirates – La María –”

“I am not your Lieutenant!” He thundered. “Not anymore! From now on, there’s no more talk of pirates, there’s no more talk of La María and there’s no more Capitán!”

Lesaro glared at them all, challenging any of them to speak.

No one did.

“Everything that bastard’s ever done, has been to fuck us over! And this – _this_ is just one more fuck up in a series of fuck ups!”

Holding the rapier up in one hand, he ran the length of its blade in a deep cut across his other hand. Blood splattered onto the black sand from the violence of his move. Lesaro then held his bloodied hand up, open for them all to see. Within seconds, the cut had healed, the blood running down his wrist sinking back into his skin. The gory cut disappeared as though it had never happened.

The men gaped.

“We’re alive, but we’re not human,” Lesaro told them. “Thanks to Salazar!”

They all stared at Lesaro’s hand – whole and unhurt, all traces of blood gone.

No one knew what to make of it.

And then, out of all of them, it was Bracero who made the first move. He took out one of his daggers, rolled up his sleeve; and, mimicking Lesaro, made a long cut over his own forearm. He hissed a little in pain, baring his teeth as he studied his work. And just like Lesaro’s had, the cut bled, slowed, and then healed over, the blood re-absorbing back through his tanned skin. He looked down with fascination as he clenched and unclenched his fist, flexing his muscles.

The men looked uncertainly at each other, murmuring low among themselves.

“What’s happened to us?”

“Are we even human?”

“What does it mean?”

And then Moss cleared his throat. “If we’re not completely human…” he swallowed as everyone looked at him, “Then – then what are we?”

“Cursed,” Lesaro said bitterly. “Again.”

Santos frowned. “But we have a heartbeat now. We breathe. And if we can’t be wounded, isn’t that a good thing?”

“We can be hurt.” Lesaro corrected. “We just heal faster.”

“Sí, it stings like hell,” Bracero grimaced.

“But we can’t be permanently hurt!” Moss looked hopeful. “Wouldn’t that mean… maybe... it’s not really a curse?”

“We couldn’t be hurt before either, it means nothing!” Lesaro snapped.

“It’s true we couldn’t be physically hurt before,” Navarro, the oldest among them, spoke up. “But we carried pain. For decades, there wasn’t one among us who didn’t carry the pain of their death constantly in their bodies. That was the strange nature of the curse we had.”

“My point exactly.” Lesaro sheathed Salazar's rapier in his belt. “A curse doesn’t care about whether you feel pain or not. A curse just prolongs your existence in the state you were in when it started. Living, dead, it doesn’t care. Therefore, any pain is just incidental.”

Navarro stroked his white beard thoughtfully. “Still, not being able to be wounded is … interesting.”

At that, the men started to talk at once.

“It’s unnatural.”

“Perhaps it’s to do with the Trident?”

“But that should’ve just broken our curse.”

“Maybe breaking the Trident put a curse on everyone.”

“No, breaking the Trident breaks all curses!”

“Only the ones made at sea -”

“But _what are we_?”

“Whatever we are,” Magda’s cool voice carried evenly over the noise, his calm authority making all of them stop to listen, “We’re still alive.” Everyone digested this in silence. “If we can’t be wounded – it stands to reason we can’t die either.” He shot a semi-apologetic glance at Lesaro. “It might not be another curse. The curse of the Devil’s Triangle was broken when the Trident broke. Considering how close we were to the Trident when it happened… perhaps, the power that was released when it broke didn’t distinguish between different types of curses. Perhaps, it just broke _all_ of our curses. We were in the sea, we were afflicted with a curse made at sea, but perhaps… being so close as we were… perhaps it also broke the greatest curse of all.”

“The greatest curse…?” Moss was confused.

“The curse of all men,” Navarro said. “Death.”

Lesaro thought again of the raging waters tossing and dragging him along the ocean floor, the small box-like thing he’d squeezed in his fist, the desperate silent plea he’d made right before it had cracked… Magda’s reasoning was perfectly logical, and yet he couldn’t shake the sense that it was wrong.

“So, we cannot die.” Bracero said matter-of-factly. “No hell for me then.” He shot a twisted smile at some of the other crewmen. “Now I will never be able to spit in the devil’s face.”

“ _Idiota_.” Navarro snorted. “What makes you think the devil stays in hell?”

Bracero winked. “You thinking of sending him an invitation, old man?”

“Best beware, boy, or one night he’ll be breathing down your neck.”

"I could only hope!"

Amidst the lewd jokes and hearty chortling of Bracero and a couple of the other crewmen, Cortez’s face creased with worry as he turned and looked out to sea.

“But, if we’re immortal…” Cortez murmured, his eyes squinting at the sunlit sea, “Maybe - maybe Capitán Salazar is too...”

Lesaro heard, and glared at Cortez. “He’d better not be! Because if I _ever_ ,” he raised his voice, making sure not one of them would miss it, “See that bastard again, he’ll regret it with every damn breath he takes. I will stab him in the face with his own fucking sword!”

An awkward, painful silence clapped down over the group of men as they stood on the beach. The wind whistled gently through the black rocks. The distant waves hushed. In the distance, living seagulls called out to one another.

Until finally, Magda said, “So… Gui. What do you propose we do now?”

“Now?” Lesaro’s mouth drew into a thin determined line. “Now, we figure out a way to get the hell off of this rock.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so much passionate admiration for Lieutenant Lesaro (and also, the formidably talented actor who portrays him, Juan Carlos Vellido). At long last, I have finally decided to risk posting one of the stories Lesaro has been asking me (very patiently) for: a story about what happens when he finally has had it with Capitán Salazar.  
> Also, I am so very sorry, I hope it is not becoming a bore, but I have a thing for Spaniards who have just had the outside of enough, and start making their own rules. It’s just… it’s just a thing I have. A permanent condition. I believe it’s incurable. Symptoms are manageable, but only with regular doses of writing about it (at least once a day or else it just gets wildly out of control). Offers for a cure will be politely but firmly refused.


End file.
